Spanish football
The Supercopa de España
The Supercopa de España is the Spanish super cup, contested by four clubs — the previous season's top two finishers in La Liga and the two Copa del Rey finalists. The four-team format dates to 2020 and replaced an earlier two-team version. Recent editions have been held in January in Saudi Arabia, giving the tournament a distinct mid-season place in the Spanish football calendar.
What the Supercopa is
The Supercopa de España is the Spanish super cup — a short tournament usually staged in January, with recent editions held in Saudi Arabia.
The Supercopa de España is contested by four Spanish clubs: the previous season's La Liga champions, the La Liga runners-up, the Copa del Rey winners, and the Copa del Rey runners-up. The four clubs play two semi-finals and a final across a few days in early or mid January. Recent editions have been held at a single host venue in Saudi Arabia, with Jeddah and Riyadh both hosting the tournament.
The competition is run by the Royal Spanish Football Federation, and recent editions have been staged in Saudi Arabia under a long-term hosting agreement. The four-team format dates to 2020, although the Supercopa name dates back to 1982, when a smaller two-team version of the competition was introduced. The modern version gives the Supercopa a clearer mid-season role than the older two-team format.
How the tournament works
Four clubs play two semi-finals and a final, usually with midweek semi-finals and a weekend final at the same venue.
The semi-final line-up is confirmed once the four qualifiers are known. The usual logic pairs the La Liga champions with the Copa del Rey runners-up in one semi-final, and the Copa del Rey winners with the La Liga runners-up in the other, but overlaps in qualification can require replacement league clubs and adjusted pairings. The semi-finals are normally played in midweek, with the final played at the weekend. Recent editions have used a single host stadium in Saudi Arabia.
Each match is a single 90-minute fixture. Since the 2025 edition, drawn matches go directly to a penalty shoot-out without extra time being played — a rule change made to reduce player fatigue from the compressed schedule. Before 2025, the Supercopa used the standard extra-time-then-penalties model. The semi-final winners progress to the final on the Sunday, where the same direct-to-penalties rule applies if needed.
Who plays in it
Four clubs qualify each year through their La Liga and Copa del Rey results.
The standard four qualifying places are the top two La Liga finishers and the two Copa del Rey finalists from the previous season. When qualification routes overlap — for example, if the La Liga champions also reach the Copa del Rey final — the extra place passes down to the next-best La Liga finishers. For the January 2026 edition, based on the 2024-25 season, Barcelona and Real Madrid occupied both the league and Copa del Rey places, so Atlético Madrid and Athletic Club entered through league position.
The four-team format has been dominated in its early years by Real Madrid and Barcelona, who have featured in every edition since 2020. Atlético Madrid and Athletic Club have been among the next most regular entrants. The Supercopa's qualifying rules also create routes for other strong league and cup performers, although recent finals have often been dominated by Real Madrid and Barcelona.
The most successful clubs
Barcelona and Real Madrid have dominated the competition; a small number of other clubs have also won.
Barcelona are the most successful club in the Supercopa, with 16 titles across the competition's history. Those successes reflect Barcelona's strength in both La Liga and the Copa del Rey across multiple decades, and have given them regular entry to the Supercopa. Real Madrid are second with 13 titles, including the inaugural four-team Supercopa in 2020. Athletic Club and Deportivo La Coruña are joint third with three titles each.
Atlético Madrid have won twice, in 1985 and 2014. Mallorca, Real Zaragoza, Valencia and Sevilla have each won once. Real Sociedad were the inaugural Supercopa winners in 1982. The full list of winners gives the Supercopa a wider spread of champions than its recent Real Madrid and Barcelona focus might suggest, although those two clubs have been especially prominent in the four-team era.
A short history
The Supercopa was launched in 1982 and reshaped substantially in 2020.
The Supercopa de España was first held in 1982 as a two-team season-opening match between the previous season's La Liga champions and Copa del Rey winners. In many editions where the league champions also won the Copa del Rey, the Copa del Rey runners-up filled the second slot, although some early double-winning clubs were awarded the trophy without a match. The competition was played over two legs, one at each club's home ground, for most of its history, before moving to a single-match final at a neutral venue in Tangier, Morocco, in 2018.
The major change came in November 2019, when the Royal Spanish Football Federation announced a four-team format for the 2019-20 season under new hosting arrangements. The first four-team Supercopa was held in Jeddah in January 2020, with Real Madrid beating Atlético Madrid in the final. The competition has since usually been held in Saudi Arabia, except in 2021, when COVID-19 travel restrictions forced the tournament back to Spain.
What to read next
The natural next steps are the two competitions that feed the Supercopa.